Shelf Life

Luck & Logic

by Paul Jensen, Apr 17th 2017

I went to see your name. last week, since I'm lucky enough to live near a theater that's playing it. Then I went to see it again a few days later, since I really liked it and wanted to inflict it on as many of my friends as possible. Seriously, go see it if you get the chance. In the meantime, welcome to Shelf Life.

Shelf Life Reviews

It's time for some super-powered teenagers with fancy costumes! Here's my review of Luck & Logic.

It usually takes one of two things for me to stick a series with a Perishable rating. The easiest calls are the utter train wrecks, shows so blatantly bad that their existence genuinely annoys me. Luck & Logic falls into a second group, one that makes it much tougher to settle on a final rating. It's the kind of series that's just below average across the board. Nothing about it is supremely awful, but there's also no redeeming features to bump it up into the Rental category. In a crowded genre, bland and mediocre don't make for a winning combination.

Luck & Logic tells the story of Yoshichika Tsurugi, a young guy who once defended the human world from otherworldly invaders. His career as a “Logicalist” ended when he lost the Logic Card that allowed him to use his special powers. Yoshichika gets a second chance when the goddess Athena shows up with his missing Card and says that she wants to be his new partner. The two of them join up with other teams of goddesses and Logicalists to fend off a variety of wayward gods and evil spirits.

The script makes a self-aware joke early in the story by having Yoshichika promise his little sister that he'll be the kind of boring hero who never loses. This becomes a recurring thing throughout the series, as other characters take jabs at him for being too much of a stereotypical protagonist. The problem is that this description does fit Yoshichika too well, and it can also be applied to the majority of the supporting cast. It's all well and good for a series to poke fun at itself, but you really have to commit to breaking the fourth wall if you're going to do it successfully. The cliché character development in Luck & Logic isn't a joke, it's an actual flaw that the show tries to mitigate by making jokes about it. It's a thin line, but this series ends up on the wrong side of.

The plot follows a similarly predictable track. We go through the usual beats of Yoshichika getting to know his hot female teammates, realizing he likes Athena, and facing off against a final villain who's supposed to be morally ambiguous but really isn't. Most of the episodes start with a decent enough premise, like teammates finding common ground or a mid-level baddie switching sides to join the good guys. The real problem lies in the execution, with overly predictable plot twists and emotional peaks that are more clumsy than compelling. The consistently below-average execution adds up to a story that's usually boring when it needs to be exciting.

The upside here is that sticking to the “safe and boring” route generally helps Luck & Logic stay out of truly awful territory. While the story never did much to grab my attention, it also never made me want to beat my head against a wall. The basic structure of the plot is coherent, and the show does manage to be mildly amusing at times. The duo of rookie Logicalist Yukari and grumpy snake god Quetzalcoatl stands out more than the rest of the cast, partially because they have some cute chemistry with one another and partially because Yukari gets a fun snake pajama outfit whenever they do their Trance fusion technique.

Luck & Logic is also fairly respectable on the technical front, featuring some good character designs. My main visual gripe is that it tends to jump between traditional animation and CG during the action scenes, which creates a jarring effect that reminds me of the dance numbers in the first season of Love Live!. It's one of those cases where both styles are passable, but blending the two just doesn't work. This set is light on extras, but it does include a competent English dub from Funimation. The casting choices and performances are pretty solid, but the dub can only do so much with a story this bland.

If you really love shows about teenagers fighting invaders from other dimensions, then you might get something out of Luck & Logic. On the other hand, the more familiar you are with this genre, the more obvious it becomes that everything in this show is stale. It's not good enough to stand out on pure quality, and it's not distinctive enough to carve out a unique niche for itself. That makes it pretty forgettable in my view, sinking it just far enough down to end up in Perishable territory.
-Paul[TOP]

That wraps up the review section for this week. Thanks for reading!

This week's shelves are from Art:

"My name is Art and I've been watching/collecting anime on and off for almost five years now. I was debating whether or not to share my collection because it isn't as elegant or grand as past collections I've seen on here but what the hay. My first introduction to anime was with Neon Genesis Evangelion and it's complimentary film End of Evangelion and what a way to be introduced to this medium. As I said before my collection isn't really big and it's organized in a favorite to least favorite manner, blu rays are also scarce because I hopped on that train fairly recently."

As anime introductions go, starting with Evangelion definitely counts as jumping in at the deep end. Looks like your collection's in pretty good shape to me; I see a lot of good shows in there. Thanks for sharing!

If you'd like to show off your own anime and/or manga collection, send me your photos at [email protected]!

Wow! Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into the anime industry thanks to streaming! Is any of that money going to the people who actually make anime? Justin gets into it.― Custom Gundam asked: With ANN recently reporting that Crunchyroll royalties to the Japanese industry exceed US $100 million and also the huge amount recieved from global companies like Netflix and Amazon and also the va...

Take a journey back in time with Daryl Surat, when many people were introduced to anime through heartwarming films like My Neighbor Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies. But what forgotten gems lie sleeping in this long-ago year?― Every so often, I get questions regarding what the value is in observing what works of popular culture remain worth watching, decades after their creation. But nearly three m...

This beloved 2000s megahit is the newest to get a live-action update to the big screen, now available on Netflix after its theatrical run in Japan. Theron Martin finds out if this movie can live up to fans' expectations.― Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the most popular and successful anime/manga franchises of the 2000s, so the only surprise surrounding this live-action adaptation might be that it di...

Citrus has turned a few heads with its incestuous twist on lesbian romance. We suss out whether this makes for a juicy love story or just sour pulp.― Citrus has turned a few heads with its incestuous twist on lesbian romance. This week in anime, Michelle and Steve suss out whether this makes for a juicy love story or just sour pulp. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in...

Hiromu Arakawa's pastoral drama about the highs and lows of farm living at an agricultural college is a far cry from Fullmetal Alchemist, but just as rewarding. Rebecca Silverman has the details.― Hiromu Arakawa's agricultural coming of age tale's anime adaptation reached English-speakers long before now, which makes it feel like a real treat to finally get the chance to read the manga. Based roughl...

Paul discovers a hidden gem in a surprisingly lazy package with this lovely slice-of-life comedy. Plus, all this week's new anime releases and a brand-new Shelf Obsessed!― I've been working on putting together a Star Wars model kit recently, and holy heck that process is easier if you have a decent set of the appropriate tools. It's almost a relaxing experience when you don't have to threaten each ...

This attempt at a gritty action spectacle falls prey to confusing storytelling and baffling editing. Theron Martin examines what went wrong.― In the Summer 2016 Preview Guide, I gave the first episode of this manga adaptation a middling score, saying that it isn't without potential. Rarely have I looked back at a review and been more perplexed at what I wrote, as on a second view that first episode ...

There sure are a lot of gambling anime, but what's it actually like to gamble in Japan? Does anime paint an accurate picture? Justin gets into it.― Jake asked: I have recently been watching Kakegurui Compulsive Gambler on Netflix and it has me curious about gambling in Japan. Gambling is in a ton of anime from Samurai Champloo to Kaiji. Mostly I am familiar with the basic odd even dice game as well...

Mike digs into the legendary and idiosyncratic career of Ryousuke Takahashi, from Cyborg 009 to Armored Trooper Votoms to Phoenix.― A few weeks back, the Right Stuf folks were running some sort of cheap-o blowout sale, and one of the items for sale, along with a still-absurdly-large quantity of Geneon and ADV Films DVD backstock, was this hat. Yep, for just one dollar, you could be the proud owner o...

This adaptation makes great use of its difficult source material to tell a trapped-in-a-game/escape room story worth digging into. Rebecca Silverman explains why.― If you've played the original game of Ao Oni (“blue demon”) or watched the series of anime shorts, Kenji Kuroda's novelization may come as a surprise. That's not a bad thing, though – Kuroda's reimagining of the source material not only c...